A heavenly body possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth
that it would be part of this solar system has been found in the direction of the constellation
Orion by an orbiting telescope aboard the U.S. infrared astronomical satellite.

So mysterious is the object that astronomers do not know if it is a planet, a giant comet, a
nearby "protostar" that never got hot enough to become a star, a distant galaxy so young that
it is still in the process of forming its first stars or a galaxy so shrouded in dust that none of the
light cast by its stars ever gets through.

"All I can tell you is that we don't know what it is," Dr. Gerry Neugebauer, IRAS chief
scientist for California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and director of the Palomar Observatory
for the California Institute of Technology, said in an interview.

The most fascinating explanation of this mystery body, which is so cold it casts no light and
has never been seen by optical telescopes on Earth or in space, is that it is a giant gaseous
planet as large as Jupiter and as close to Earth as 50 trillion miles. While that may seem like a
great distance in earthbound terms, it is a stone's throw in cosmological terms, so close in fact
that it would be the nearest heavenly body to Earth beyond the outermost planet Pluto.

"If it is really that close, it would be a part of our solar system," said Dr. James Houck of
Cornell University's Center for Radio Physics and Space Research and a member of the
IRAS science team. "If it is that close, I don't know how the world's planetary scientists
would even begin to classify it."

The mystery body was seen twice by the infrared satellite as it scanned the northern sky from
last January to November, when the satellite ran out of the supercold helium that allowed its
telescope to see the coldest bodies in the heavens. The second observation took place six
months after the first and suggested the mystery body had not moved from its spot in the sky
near the western edge of the constellation Orion in that time.

"This suggests it's not a comet because a comet would not be as large as the one we've
observed and a comet would probably have moved," Houck said. "A planet may have moved
if it were as close as 50 trillion miles but it could still be a more distant planet and not have
moved in six months time."

Whatever it is, Houck said, the mystery body is so cold its temperature is no more than 40
degrees above "absolute" zero, which is 456 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. The telescope
aboard IRAS is cooled so low and is so sensitive it can "see" objects in the heavens that are
only 20 degrees above absolute zero.

When IRAS scientists first saw the mystery body and calculated that it could be as close as
50 trillion miles, there was some speculation that it might be moving toward Earth.

"It's not incoming mail," Cal Tech's Neugebauer said. "I want to douse that idea with as much
cold water as I can."

Then, what is it? What if it is as large as Jupiter and so close to the sun it would be part of the
solar system? Conceivably, it could be the 10th planet astronomers have searched for in vain.
It also might be a Jupiter-like star that started out to become a star eons ago but never got hot
enough like the sun to become a star.

While they cannot disprove that notion, Neugebauer and Houck are so bedeviled by it that
they do not want to accept it. Neugebauer and Houck "hope" the mystery body is a distant
galaxy either so young that its stars have not begun to shine or so surrounded by dust that its
starlight cannot penetrate the shroud.

"I believe it's one of these dark, young galaxies that we have never been able to observe
before," Neugebauer said.

"If it is, then it is a major step forward in our understanding of the size of the universe, how the
universe formed and how it continues to form as time goes on."

The next step in pinpointing what the mystery body is, Neuegebauer said, is to search for it
with the world's largest optical telescopes. Already, the 100-inch diameter telescope at Cerro
del Tololo in Chile has begun its search and the 200-inch telescope at Palomar Mountain in
California has earmarked several nights next year to look for it. If the body is close enough
and emits even a hint of light, the Palomar telescope should find it since the infrared satellite
has pinpointed its position.

(ITEM 123)December 31, 1983, Saturday, Final Edition
(ITEM 127)The distance from earth of a mysterious object in space was reported incorrectly
in some editions yesterday. The correct figure is 50 billion miles.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not
include subsequent corrections.

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Many Earthlike Planets...333 viewsPrecious detailed information about several indicated planets by Science as 'Earthlike':

1.Ogle-2005-BLG-390Lb at 25.000 lightyears in Sagittarius, the most Earthlike planet yet [since 11 july 2005] discovered, with a mass of 5.5 that of our Earth!
2. Near HD 98618 [Twin Sister of our Sun] at 126 lightyears. Twinlike solar system, 26.000 lightyears from the galactic centre, provides conditions for finding an 'Earthlike planet'.
3. Near the Sun-like [Lum. 0.93] star HD 70642 in the constellation of Puppis at 90 lightyears, a Jupiter-like planet in a 6 year orbit around its parent star, makes a second 'Home' or 'New Earth' a possibility.
4. Near 18 Scorpii, 4.2 billion years old at 46 lightyears away from Earth. (45.82 ly), visible in the night sky close to the Scorpion's left claw, provides the oppurtunity to find an 'Earthlike' planet in such a Twinlike solar system with a sunlike-star, close to ours, also 26.000 lightyears away from the galactic centre. 2 % of the stars in our galaxy are sun-like, that's a lot under many billion stars.
5. Mu ARAae is a star visible in the Southern constellation ARA [Altar] at 50 lightyears. In a discovery European astronomers have found one of the smallest planets known outside our solar system, a planet about 14 times the mass of our own Earth [a great Brother of our Earth], circling around a star much like the Sun. MSNBC, SpaceCom: Super Earth found circling nearby star. It could be a rocky planet with a thin atmosphere, a sort of "Super Earth", that completes its tight orbit in less than 10 days, compared with the 365 required for our Earth. Hot as in around 1.160 Fahrenheit [900 degrees Kelvin]. Mu Arae harbors two other planets. One is Jupiter-sized and takes 650 days to make its annual trip around the star. The other planet with 14 times the mass of Earth is a rocky planet, circling Mu Ara in size and brightness to our Sun, is about as heavy as Uranus, a world of gas and ice and the smallest giant planet in our solar system. Theorist say 14 Earth-masses is roughly the upper limit for a planet to remain rocky, however. And because this planet is so close to its host star, it likely had a much different formation history than Uranus. In our solar system, the four innermost planets are all rocky. Santos said life on this "Super Earth", is not likely. But he added, "one never knows".

6. 58 Eridani, only 400 million years old, visible in oktober-januari, in the constellation of Eridanus, remains at 44 lightyears [43.44 ly] and matches exceptionally close to our Sun in overall properties [like Zeta Tucanee and Alpha Mensae], but 58 is the most Twin-like and Sunlike in all aspects. Astronomers are hoping to find a rocky inner planet in the so called "habitable zone" (HZ) around 58.
Eridanus, the River, some relate it to the Eufraat and the Tigris, some to the Nile, wend its way South-West of Rigel (Beta Orionis).

7. EPSILON ERIDANI, about some 600 million years old, somewhere estimated between 500 and 1 billion years old at a distance of 10 lightyears [10.50 ly].
It is surrounded by a ring of dust (asteroidbelt?) at about the same distance as that of the KUIPER-belt from the Sun and this might indicate the presence of other unseen worlds/planets.
The density of the dust-belt in the Eridian system is the same as it would have been in our solar System about 4 billion years ago-about 600 million years after the Earth and other planets formed, toward the end of the period of the heavy bombardment [by the collision of Nibiru on Tiamat 3.9 billion years ago: see 'the Twelfth Planet, the Enuma Elish of Z. Sitchin]. This discovery adds to the growing body of evidence that planetary systems around other Stars are the rule rather than exception. Moreover Epsilon Eri provides a window into what conditions may have been like in the neighborhood of the Sun at a time when life was first beginning to emerge on the young Earth [just like ours 3.9 billion years ago].
In 2000, astronomers re-announced the discovery of a Jupiter-like planet around Epsilon Eri, with an orbit of 2502.1 days. In October 2002 morphological studies detected the dust-disk, and close to that one of the lowest mass extrasolar planets yet discovered, with a mass roughly one tenth that of Jupiter, it also has by far the longest orbit of any yet discovered [Nibiru is exceptional; 3600 years], with an orbital period of 280 years (Pluto has an orbit of 247 years).
The presence of Epsilon Eridani C was disclosed by researchers at the University of Rochester using a new technique that does not use direct light from the star, but rather light radiating from the dust-belt surrounding it.
Not all stars have large concentrations of dust, but those that do! like Epsilon Eridani, only at some 10,5 lightyears away, can display telltale patterns in their dust fields that may lead to planetary earth-(and who knows Nibiru/PlanetX-like) detection?
Distance Epsilon Eri: 10.50 lightyears
Spectral type: K2V
Apparent Magnitude: 3.72
Absolute Magnitude: 6.18
Luminosity: 0.3 (our Sun = 1)
Position: R.A. 3h 32m 56s, dec -9 degrees 27'30''

An exciting planetary discovery, just reported, spilled over from Scientific issues to the general media.
The New York Times (25 Januari 2006) presented the news more preciously: SEARCH FINDS FAR OFF PLANET AKIN TO EARTH. The excitement stemmed from a report in the British scientific journal, called 'Nature' (the issue of 26 Januari 2006). A hint is that it therefore might harbor life.

The discovery, based on measurements by the Hubble Space Telescope, challenges scientists to rethink theories of how, when and where planets form, explained the science editor of the New York Times.

-ABC science Online Australia: Earth's twin found at heart of Milky Way.
-MSNBC: Scientist spot a new Earthlike planet.
-"This the most Earthlike Planet we have discovered to date, in terms of its mass and the distance from its parent star", he told BBC.

That life "happened" out there much before than on Earth- that is the shocking part of the new discovery...
It is in the same galaxy as Earth, the Milky Way, but is found closer to the galactic centre.
Astronomers say by the virtue of the ceaseless shifting of the billions of stars and a trick of Einsteinian physics, they have briefly GLIMPSED the most Earthlike planet [of rock and ice] yet to be discovered outside the solar system. If they ever glimpse it again, no one knows..

28 Januari 2006
Maggie McKee
Magazine Issue 2536
25 Januari 2006 New York Times: Scientist have briefly glimsed an 'Earthlike' planet OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb just 234 miles from its dim reddish star; in the constellation of Sagittarius, at some 22.000 lightyears away, with only 5,5 times the mass of Earth. "THIS IS THE MOST EARTHLIKE PLANET WE HAVE YET DISCOVERED TO DATE, IN TERMS WITH ITS MASS AND THE DISTANCE FROM ITS PARENTS STAR." In a cosmic eyeblink, it was the blip in the night that we have been waiting for said Jean Phlippe Beaulieu of the Institute of France of Astrophysics in Paris. To pick out the star they exploited the phenomenon called gravitational microlensing. When one star passes in front of another. This most 'Earthlike planet orbits its star every 10 years in 2.6 AU distance:

Another 'Eartlike planet discovered? Urania Volkssterrenwacht in 2003, Noorderlichtvpro.nl: A 'Second Home', a 'New Earth' at 90 lightyears: an 'Earthlike' planet with a mass of 3 times that of Jupiter is at 467 million kilometers from the Sun-like star HD 70642 in the constellation of Puppis at 90 lightyears from our Earth.

And a third very Old 'ExtraSolar' planet as old as our Milky Way:
www.anoca.org/star/planet/methuselah_28planet_29.html says:
-Nicknamed Metuselah planet=PSR B1620-26c has a mass of 2 or 3 times that of Jupiter in the constellation of Scorpius and is about 12.7 billion years old, 3 times as old as Earth at 5.600 lightyears.

Extrasolar planets are one of current astronomy's holy grails and so the saying is there is a strong temptation to see them where one want to see them.
UfodeWaarheid.com does not but is just investigating the facts from different sources that all comes together. That's why we keep on wondering...also about how many 'Earthlike' Planets exist in our Milky Way..

*Because Red Dwarfs are the most common type of star in the Milky Way, this might mean that 'Earthlike' planets are ABUNDANT in our galaxy!*

29th of March, 2006

"recent" collision near Wega...306 viewsDid a PlanetX or a Nibiru-like planet pass there also "recently"?
Vega, next to Draco, also known as Alpha Lyrae is 3 times the mass of our Sun, rises 56 min after sunset, 40 degrees North Lattitude in the constellation Lyra at only 25,3 light years away and [also] 500 million to 1 billion years young! IRAS 1983
Vega: "Phoenix", "the Falling Eagle", the Harp Star, in Akkadian: Tir-Anna, "Life of Heaven", Babylonian: Dilgan, "the Messenger of Light", in Sanskrit: Abhijit, "Victorious", in Assyrian Dayan, "Judge of Heaven" as having the highest seat therein, Lyre or Harp, in Arabic Vega is known as "Stone Eagle", in Chinese "She-niu", the Weaver. Christians saw Lyra as King Davids harp. In Holland's translation of Pliny it is the Harp star.
So already in Sumerian and Babylonian times Vega was well known!
In about 14.000 AD Vega will become Earth's North Star owing to the precession of the equinoxes.
Polaris is now our Pole Star, "the still point in the turning world".
The dust disk [asteroidbelt-about 3 times further away than our belt, for its Sun has also 3 times the mass of our Sun] at 60 to 90 AU recently detected and created by a large and relatively "recent" collision that have involved objects [at least] as big as the planet Pluto:
"Sattelites or moons of a larger planetX?"